Positive mesh stories

[Chuck]

First guys relax….I am not creating all these new identities…i simply dont have the time. I was destroyed by lap mesh….but I didnt go into that surgery blind. This is a tissue repair forum where everyone is strongly opposed to mesh. But the fact is tissue repairs have lots of problems too. Lots of surgical pain -that is nearly a guarantee…long recovery times with plenty of pain…and then likely a lifetime of feeling the repair….maybe not all the time…but usually when lifting things…or pulling things. Tissue repair is not the golden ticket or i certainly would have selected it. I selected lap mesh because i had three friends who had it done…..going on 10-25 years without any issues at all….zero. Same with my priest…same with my urologist…same with two other friends. Then there are the guys who had open mesh….i have spoken to close to 100 guys who had no issues at all…NOTHING. So when i had the chance to fix to hernias at once in a painless scarless procedure i went for it and was destroyed….it was not easy to discern the appropriate repair. As it turns out, I doubt anyone in the US could give me a really good tissue repair. When you get a hernia and go to the doctor…or in my case 6 doctors…and all tell you they have never seen a mesh complication…what do you do? Say well there is this one guy named Good Intentions on the Net who says i shouldnt do it? Never mind that there is lots of information suggesting that tissue repairs simply dont last long term….and docs were telling me if you want to do it right and not have a second operation –use mesh. Yunis said lap mesh was silly safe….Towfigh said it was the best surgery…now she qualifies it by saying for the total population….but she was on the record as saying its frequently the best choice…So are there postive mesh stories…yes,,,there are a ton….i dont understand it….but there are

[Watchful]

There are success and failure stories for all these options. The statistics aren’t very clear. The only thing that’s clear is that there are no options with zero risk, and the risk is not negligible with all of them. You are looking for something that doesn’t exist.

[William Bryant]

Think that’s probably true Watchful. However the undecided have to try and choose the least likely to cause issues, as yourself and Chuck presumably did.

I’ve got this down to a main choice between Dr Lorenz or Conze and Dr Kang. Do you think that’s a good choice?

[Watchful]

William,

I think Dr. Lorenz and Dr. Conze are excellent choices. I wouldn’t hesitate to go to either one of them. I have a slight preference for Dr. Conze.

[Watchful]

If you want to keep the Desarda option open, then Dr. Lorenz would be the better choice.

[William Bryant]

Thanks both.
Now the big question… At the moment I am 99.9999 percent symptom free so having read the risk is swapping this for the risk of repair and pain I’m thinking of delaying for some time especially as I have some…

High blood pressure
Mild to moderate COPD
Some prostate issues
Some ED issues

I think if I can have some time functioning as I am the get the operation done.

I can’t see an operator helping any of these.

More likely to aggravate I think.

Would other posters agree?

Thanks

[Watchful]

If your hernia is stable (not growing) and mostly asymptomatic, my recommendation for what it’s worth would be to continue watchful waiting.

[Good intentions]

If you’ve chosen a surgeon I would contact them and ask their advice. They might say it doesn’t matter or they might have suggestions/advice based on your current health. You might also learn something about their schedule or future plans that is important.

[David M]

William,

I believe you think you have a pantaloon? Is either part of that getting worse and what are the sizes? I know that a direct hernia is probably going to get worse with time. I’m not sure about an indirect.

One thing to consider, because it’s a problem I have had over the last year, is that if you start having worse health issues, especially regarding a cough, it might make it more difficult to have it done even as you start to need it more.

I was really getting serious about having mine done back at the end of 2019, covid hit and they shut down the elective surgeries, then both my parents reached really difficult ages where they needed me, then last summer I caught covid with dramatic coughing, then heart irregularities, then some kind of infection causing more coughing for 4 months. I’m entering a better section of time coming up than I have had in the last few years, I hope.

The flip side of that is that although my hernia has gotten worse, it still doesn’t affect my life much. But looking out into the future, I think I probably need to go ahead and have it done if I think I’ll have a few safe months to heal, given the uncertainty of getting older and maybe not having a good opportunity later.

But it is a dilemma.

[Chuck]

Watchful and GI agreed – but lets review some tissue failure stories

My friends dad – failed after 10 years technique unknown

Watchfuls Dad—tissue failure

Watchful – Chronic pain from tissue repair at shouldice

TWo posters here allege dr brown destroyed them with tissue repairs

Baris destroyed in tissue repair with Koch

Casimir destroyed in Tissue repair with Tomas

Pinto – recurrance with kang…he fixed it…but it recurred quickly the first time

Dr Yunis – one poster here said yunis gave him chronic pain from a shouldice repair

GI posted about a guy who went to GRishkan and was damaged with a tissue repair

I found three stories of chronic pain with tissue repair on that other forum i posted on

There is a study showing 36 percent chronic pain from shouldice repair

Bottom line—if you have a hernia –chances are decent you will never be the same once you are operated on….watchful waiting makes sense until it doesnt and no one knows for sure when it doesnt.

[Good intentions]

Advice for you Chuck – post the link to the study that shows a 36% chronic pain rate from Shouldice. The quality of the work is important and people need to see the source so that they can evaluate its quality. Without that it’s just more internet dramatics. Even better, post the links to all of your internet finds.

Stop using the word “destroyed”. It doesn’t really mean anything. And don’t exaggerate. I don’t think that Watchful has reached the level of what would be defined as “chronic pain”. I don’t know that he would define it that way. A single found exaggeration makes all other statements questionable.

I don’t expect any changes from you, based on the past, but a person can always hope. Good luck with whatever your current problem is.

[William Bryant]

Hello David,

I do wonder about pantaloon as I had an ultrasound that the person doing it said showed direct but 3 consultants by feel have said indirect.

Sizewise I dont think there has been much change in 2 years. Age wise I’m 60ish so am aware of the declining years and problems that can happen but i am, at present, dubious about risking no pain for chance of a lot of pain.

How old are you if it’s not impertinent.

[Chuck]

GI here is the link to the study –everything else i stated can be found on this forum with some diligence….trust me I take careful notes of anyone reporting problems…and there are plenty of tissue problems too. I chose mesh. it was a mistake…but there are no easy answers. You have a habit of just blathering on about how bad mesh is but you never propose what you would do instead…no discussion of techniques or surgeons that you believe can deliver the best result…no your stuff is not any more helpful than mine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15243743/

[David M]

William, I’m 71. My physical condition is hard to define, though. My dad lived to be 102. My mother is currently 99. And it seems true that I am holding up well in many ways. On the other hand, I had a heart attack in 2018, but have been very strict with diet over the past four years, and haven’t had meat, a single cake, pie or candy in that time span. My LDL has generally stayed under 80 since then, which Caldwell Esselstein identifies as a boundary of sorts.

in addition to the heart, I recently had a lung xray and the result came back as hyperinflated. I haven’t had any kind of consult about that to know whether there is some sort of COPD in my future. I try to walk regularly for exercise and despite the cardio pulmonary worries actually do pretty well with that. Probably better than my age group, despite the problems. Still, lots of question marks.

So, all in all a pretty mixed bag. I intend to play it for the long run, though. I’m like you and unsure which path to take, given my age circumstances.

[William Bryant]

David M….

Wow!

I think that’s the word.

I managed about 6 months on a diet similar to yours so well done!

[William Bryant]

Actually amazing might be more apt!

A lot of discipline there.

[David M]

When I started out my diet, I concentrated on three things: a can of beans every day, a can of spinach every day, and shifting to stevia sweeteners. I still have exceptionally easy time eating the beans. I almost exclusively eat a can of organic black beans from walmart every day. They actually taste good to me, have no fat to speak of, and the can has almost 400 calories, so it goes a long way towards the major part of a meal. The spinach I dropped after 9 months and losing some weight. I would have kept going with the spinach some, but I began to worry a little too much about the possibilities that the oxalsomething was damaging my kidneys. It was filling, though, and helped with the weight loss. The stevia sweeteners are excellent. Until recently I was using the one with erithritol as a filler, because it is supposed to have a low spike of glucose, but a few months ago they came out with a study that concluded it has a clotting and stroke danger, so I’m currently using the stevia in the raw brand with dextrose as the filler. Not really sure if that is wise or not, but the stevia really works for making the smoothies and other drinks work well.

Oh, yeah, every morning I start with a organic blueberry, organic strawberry and breakfast essentials smoothie, with stevia. That’s maybe too much fructose, but probably not and with plenty of antioxidants. You can by the organic frozen berries and strawberries in the frozen section at walmart.

[Good intentions]

Thanks Chuck. I wish I had an extra $40 to buy the article so I could see the details.

Interesting that the Lichtenstein repair had almost identical results. I don’t know what to think of it, since pain and quality of life are not defined in the abstract. The article was written in 2004 also, and there has been much discussion about those two terms in the meantime. The Carolina Comfort Scale seems to be the new “gold standard”, to use the popular term, for post-surgery surveys.

Since it’s just a short abstract, it should be okay to just copy the whole thing here.

Original Article
Published: 09 July 2004
Chronic pain after hernia repair: a randomized trial comparing Shouldice, Lichtenstein and TAPP
Jörg Köninger, Jens Redecke & Michael Butters
Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery volume 389, pages361–365 (2004)

“…
Abstract
Introduction
Chronic pain after hernia repair is common, and it is unclear to what extent the different operation techniques influence its incidence. The aim of the present study was to compare the three major standardized techniques of hernia repair with regard to postoperative pain.

Patients and methods
Two hundred and eighty male patients with primary hernias were prospectively, randomly selected to undergo Shouldice, tension-free Lichtenstein or laparoscopic transabdominal pre-peritoneal (TAPP) hernioplasty repairs. Patients were examined after 52 months with emphasis on chronic pain and its limitations to their quality of life.

Results
Chronic pain was present in 36% of patients after Shouldice repair, in 31% after Lichtenstein repair and in 15% after TAPP repair. Pain correlated with physical strain in 25% of patients after Shouldice, in 20% after Lichtenstein and in 11% after TAPP repair. Limitations to daily life, leisure activities and sports occurred in 14% of patients after Shouldice, 13% after Lichtenstein and 2.4% after TAPP repair.

Conclusion
Chronic pain after hernia surgery is significantly more common with the open approach to the groin by Shouldice and Lichtenstein methods. The presence of the prosthetic mesh was not associated with significant postoperative complaints. The TAPP repair represents the most effective approach of the three techniques in the hands of an experienced surgeon.
…”

[Good intentions]

Here is one of the references from Chuck’s paper that shows what seems to be a typical questionnaire for the time. It’s from 2001. They did separate by type of repair and ended up with “Lichtenstein 523, Conventional open 275, mesh procedure (not Lichtenstein) 257, other open procedure 85, and laparoscopic 26”. I couldn’t copy the text it’s in a Figure, Table 4. I added the number to each type.

So much conflicting data.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421158/

“…
There was no relation between the risk of chronic pain and the choice of anesthetic method or type of surgical repair.
…”

[Chuck]

David M—-strongly suggest you join my Facebook forum Natural Health All Stars…we discuss these health issues in depth with the smartest folks on the Facebook health forums. Spinach is a garbage food along with Chard which should never be eaten…the whole issue of LDL…ApoB lipoprotein and metabolic health is debated ad nauseum…including statins whether they should be used or not….I wish our friend watchful would join up as well…we might have some solutions for all his aches and pains…I created the group after i got blindsided here with a mesh surgery….my doctor told me he could fix both sides…no scarring or cutting…and very minor post op pain with a SILS approach….i saw all the cutting sewing of tissue repairs and the debatable longevity and whiffed bad….my health was perfect before doctors destroyed me….determined to never let that happen again…if you want to join …let me know how to find you on facebook

[David M]

Thanks for the invite, Chuck. I don’t really use facebook. I opened an account because I had to contact someone about a class reunion and could only do it through facebook, but i’ve never used it or populated it.

[Author]

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